House Of Salt Withstands Elements
THE crystal-like structure which houses the Information Bureau at the Texas Centennial is formed from rock salt. More than 20 tons of salt were mined from the Dallas salt dome and transported by truck to the Centennial grounds where workmen laid the rocks in place to form the unusual building. Engineers who were in charge of its construction claim the salt will defy all elements for at least two years. Their claims were well substantiated recently when a 2-inch rainfall failed to shrink the building or weaken any of its masonry.

Housewife Washes Clothes by Pedaling Bike Belted to Wash Machine

FEMININE ingenuity in the field of mechanics is demonstrated in the case of a Baltimore housewife who devised what might be called a novel bicycle-motor for turning her washing machine. She simply removed the rear tire from the bike, mounted the rear axle on a wooden upright, and belted the wheel to the pulley of her washer. Then she takes what amounts to a stationary ride on the bike for a half hour, and lo! the family clothes are all washed.

This method she found far less tiresome than the usual one of operating the machine by hand. But most of all, as a scheme for reducing it can’t be beat.

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New Inventions Make Life Easy for the Housewife

The balloon tire has found a place with the newest furniture. The chaise lounge, shown above, equipped with small pneumatic tires, is now being widely used in homes and hospitals, where it affords greater comfort to invalids. Tire pump used for inflation.

Now available on the market is a spring jug handle which takes the place of the broken one, or turns any vessel into a jug. Here is a large cup fitted securely with handle, which can be removed in a second.

Latest in cooling devices is an electric fan enclosed in metal case. As fan revolves it actuates a rubber belt which agitates water in reservoir, causing fine mist to rise up in front of the fan blades, purifying the air. The device hangs from special wall bracket and swings about in any direction.

Eliminating the necessity of handling dirt from a vacuum cleaner, an inexpensive bag of filter fiber is now provided with an adaptor for attachment to any standard cleaner. Thrown away when full of dirt.

Ideal for the small apartment is this ultra-midget washing machine mechanism which fits into a special tub to do the thrashing as illustrated in this photo. Note that the motor is built into the top of the machine, where it does its work with greatest economy of space and trouble.

Orange juicers and meat grinders operated by an electric motor in the kitchen have long been common. Now a manufacturer comes along with a motor equipped so that it can be used as a juicer, an egg beater or a cream whipper, a meat grinder, a vegetable cutter, a potato masher or even a can opener, as at right. Above-Machine grinding meat.

Hand towels, wash cloths, light fabric garments and baby clothes may be dried inside this electrical drying cabinet now on the market. There’s not the slightest danger from fire.

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“Radio City” will be Marvel of Architecture

A glittering city within a city, covering three square blocks and costing the staggering total of $250,000,000—that’s the “Radio City” which will begin next month to rise in New York, the project of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Details of this architectural marvel are set forth in this article.

WHAT is perhaps the most extensive and costly building project ever announced is the new “Radio City” which will begin to rise this spring in the heart of New York. Costing in excess of $250,000,000, the new city is in reality exactly that—a city in itself which will be a world center for radio, the theater, and business.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., will be landlord of this huge group of buildings, and the National Broadcasting Company, several theater units, and probably the Metropolitan Opera will be among his most prominent tenants. The fact that the National Broadcasting Company will dominate the picture, with its 68-story office building rising in the center of the group, accounts for the popular name for the project.

Merlin H. Aylesworth, president of the N. B. C, has provided for the popular acceptance of television in considering his building plans.

“We are bending every effort to peer five or ten years ahead,” he said. “We are laying our plans with a view to practical television, for we expect television to emerge definitely from the laboratory at about the time the Radio City is completed.” This will be in 1934, according to present plans.

There will be nine buildings in all in the Radio City, occupying a space of three square blocks valued at $100,000,000, on which Mr. Rockefeller holds a long term lease at $3,-000,000 a year rental. The broadcasting tower will not be as tall as the Empire State building, which now holds the height record, but it will contain 150,000 more feet of floor space—2,000,000 in all. On one side it will present an unbroken wall 675 feet high. Only thirty studios will be built at first, but the center of the building is so designed as to permit the construction of sixteen more.

For a distance of sixteen stories above the street, there will be no windows.

In designing the studios, architects have made special provisions to accommodate the thousands of visitors who will flock to the entertainment center. Separate elevators will take them to the gallery floors, where they will take theater seats and look down into the studios and control rooms through thousands of square feet of soundproof plate glass partitions.

Several of the broadcasting chambers will be at least 115 feet long, 65 feet wide and three stories high. These size proportions are expected to provide the ultimate in acoustical effects. An increased use of the directional type of microphone, which is set up some distance from the performer, is anticipated.

Some of the studios will incorporate a novel adaptation of the revolving stage idea, except that it will be the control room containing the recording apparatus which will rotate, rather than the stage. This control room, circular in shape, will be located at the intersection of four studios so that the operators can switch from one set to another with unbroken continuity, giving an almost instantaneous change of scene.

Elaborately insulated walls and floors will make the broadcasting rooms entirely soundproof. This is particularly important where the programs being broadcast are laid in out-of-door settings, where the slightest room noise would destroy the effect.

It is possible that the central tower of the Radio City will be surmounted by the masts of a television transmitter to release images for audiences in the metropolitan area. Whether or not it will be practical to broadcast television programs from the heart of the city, or whether it will be necessary to locate the transmitters in the suburbs, as is the case with most of the broadcast transmitters, will not be definitely known until tests now under way are completed. Adjacent skyscrapers, it is feared, will have a bad effect on television images, absorbing energy from the broadcast waves, leaving the images grotesquely distorted.

Although the immense sum of $250,000,000 has been announced as the probable cost of the Radio City, it is likely that even this tremendous figure will be found inadequate. Unofficially it has been reported that construction costs will run closer to $400,000,000 by the time the city is completed. It is pointed out that the plans announced will likely be changed in some details to meet changing circumstances as building of the city progresses.

Whether or not television is going to duplicate the success of audibly broadcast radio programs is something which nobody knows definitely, but the fact that the keenest brains in the radio world are providing for television broadcasts in their new wonder building is significant of the preparations being made by the industry to welcome television as an accomplished fact.

Tilting Ash Tray Eliminates Fire Dangers

EQUIPPED with a self-tilting mechanism, this ash tray makes it impossible for a cigarette to burn down so short that the weight of the over-hanging end causes the cigarette to over-balance and fall off the tray and burn the table or rug. If the cigarette is allowed to burn for any length of time while on the rest, its heat causes a spring within the tray to expand and tilt, thus dumping the burning butt into the tray. This tray in use eliminates not only the danger of damaging furniture as the result of forgotten cigarettes, but the possibility of fire from the same cause.

Five-Story Steel Ball Makes Novel Hospital

RESEMBLING a strange machine from another planet, a huge steel ball standing five stories high is being erected at Cleveland, Ohio, so that persons suffering from diabetes may be given treatment under ideal conditions.

In the strange spherical “health hotel,” patients will live constantly in an atmosphere of high oxygen content, maintained at a pressure of 30 pounds per square inch, twice that of the normal atmosphere.

There are five floors inside the tank. An elevator in the center of the tank connects the different levels. Each of the private rooms is furnished like that in a modern hotel. Light enters through windows shaped like portholes to resist the pressure.

The treatment tank was designed in the shape of a ball so that air-tight seams could be secured more easily.

Air under 30 pounds pressure will be maintained, and the temperature and humidity will be carefully regulated. A large refrigerating plant has been built for cooling air as it leaves the compressors, and a drying plant will remove excess moisture.

PLASTIC HOME

HERE is the “Plexiglas Dream Suite,” designed to show peace-time uses for the clear plastic which has done such an efficient job decorating the noses and turrets of our fighting planes. The rooms are small in size for efficient air conditioning, but do away with that “closed in” feeling by the use of sweeping plastic walls with draw curtains for privacy. The four-color murals have a three-dimensional effect, achieved by superimposing four sheets of Plexiglas etched in separate colors and design elements. Bookshelves supply just enough indirect illumination. Drawers and shelves have plastic accessories.

Novel Ice Cream Dispenser

SODA jerkers and confectioners who are called on to “dish up” ice cream cones will appreciate the labor-saving features of a new tray which holds the cones in such a manner that both hands are free for the filling operation. Aside from its time-saving aspect, the tray permits the salesman to pause in his work of filling the cones in case he is called on to serve a rush customer.

The section containing the holes which hold the cones fits over a wooden tray base, so that the device comes in two parts. Advertising copy for ice cream manufacturers can be imprinted on the holders.

Sun Supplies Heat For This House
OLD SOL provides the heat for the hot water system in this new sun laboratory, recently completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on using the sun rays for house heating and power generation. The man on the roof is Dr. Byron B. Woertz, research assistant, who is inspecting energy collectors, or “heat traps,” in which circulating water is heated by sunlight and stored in a large basement tank for future use.

Corner Windows Feature of New Gotham Skyscraper

A NEW step in office building construction has been marked with the completion of a new 34-story skyscraper in New York City. The most noteworthy feature of the building is that the supporting steel framework does not extend to the corners of the structure, these corners being left entirely clear, and windows being placed at each floor with only a thin metal window sash at the angle. The additional light thus available in the corner offices makes these suites desirable especially in the upper stories beyond reach of street noises.

Plastic Oven is the latest use of the wonder synthetic. It offers considerable advantages for the housewife, chiefly in reducing possibility of burnt steaks, roasts, cakes, etc. Model shown is British.

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Haywire House

By R.W.K

I’VE been there, I’ve seen, I’ve taken pictures—but I still don’t see how such things are possible.

The Editors of MI heard some wild stories about a place called the House of Mystery. What stories! People go around ten degrees off the vertical! A golf ball thrown straight up comes down several inches to one side! A bottle rolls uphill! A broom stands by itself—at an angle to the floor! People grow taller or shorter, depending on where they stand! All this happens in Oregon, in a peculiar area called the Oregon Vortex, a circle, or rather a sphere, exactly 165 feet 4-1/2 inches in diameter up in the Gold Hill country!

The Editors, always hot after new science angles but suspecting trickery,, arranged that I be sent up after the . story. Right off, I’d better say I’m not a trained scientific writer at all, but a photographer. I got the assignment because I wasn’t born yesterday and because I know my camera angles. They figured if there was any optical trickery involved I’d catch it.

I’ll say right here that the House of Mystery is still a house of mystery to me.

I was plenty skeptical when I arrived. Right away John Litster, owner of the works, looked me in the eye. “Keep alert here,” he warned. “You’ll need all your skill. I won’t promise that your pictures will come out. You may have to come back several times.”

I certainly tried to be alert.

First he took me to a place where there were two concrete blocks a couple of feet apart, separated by a line. The line, he said, marked the edge of the Vortex, one block being outside and one in. He stood me on one block and himself stood on the other.

“Now, sight along a line level with your eyes and see what part of my face comes into view,” he directed. I did it, and found myself looking at the top of his head. I was the taller one.

“Now let’s swap positions,” he said. We did that—and now I found myself looking squarely into his eyes! I couldn’t help myself! I was amazed! He was taller! I tried it again. I experimented. The concrete blocks were level and even with each other in the ground!

^While I was trying to fathom the secret, a dozen tourists gathered to be token through the House, and I joined them. As we stood outside the Screwy Circle, Litster told us to cross over carefully, then stop and stand perfectly still, and we’d actually feel the change of balance. We did it. He was right! It were as though a strong wind were blowing us over toward magnetic north! We were to remain at this odd angle, sometimes greater than 10 degrees, during all our stay.

After this we were led through a rickety gate in a high board fence, and inside found ourselves in a small yard flanked on one side by the House of Mystery itself, left just as it had fallen during an earth slide many years ago. The crooked doorway captured our eyes. One elderly woman, livid with fear, refused to go a step farther.

At the doorway our guide told us to watch our balance carefully when entering because we could very easily fall up! At this advice a few ladies giggled and one old gent smiled and expertly arced a gob of tobacco juice between two rotting boards. But when we filed in we found he spoke the truth! The floor was at an angle, and standing was made difficult by the pull of some mysterious force!

In the House the experiments began. A girl was told to push a 28-pound weight, suspended from the ceiling, in a certain direction. She did it with ease. But when she tried to push it the opposite way it took all her strength! A golf ball tossed straight up fell inches to one side! These aberrations were due to the magnetic pull of the vortex of electrons, according to Litster, who says the House of Mystery puzzle is based on the same principle as a vortex. I looked up that word “vortex” as soon as I back, and I guess I’d better put down what

the dictionary, It was: “1. A mass of fluid, especially of a liquid, having a whirling or circular motion tending to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle, and to draw toward this bodies subject to its action. 2. A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortexes.”

That same golf ball, put on the floor, began rolling uphill! And it was uphill: any customer who doubted that could check it with a level.

A girl, on instructions from the guide, was told to back slowly up into a corner. She did so, but couldn’t control her momentum; she suddenly felt herself “fall up,” and slammed noisily against the wall!

At one place there were two poles marked off in inches. On one, a man’s height would be six feet, say, but on the other, only a few feet away, there would be a difference of an inch, and sometimes more!

A plumb line was suspended from the branch of a tree. Normally the bob and cord would hang straight down—but when we stood in back of it with the bob between our feet, the cord passed nearly in front of one ear!

I learned that many years ago the Indians regarded the area of the Vortex as a place of evil spirits. It is said that horses shied when they neared the place. The House of Mystery was erected as an assay office when the white man first came that way in search of gold, and its present owner, John Litster, claims he discovered the oddities of the area some 17 years ago and now stars them in a roadside sideshow to finance his study of the region.

I must say that the place seems a very profitable attraction, and I also must say that Litster was very friendly and cooperative.

These, then, are the highlights of the story. You see the pictures, just as my camera caught them.

To me, the House of Mystery is still a mystery. I’m not enough of a physicist to understand just what this vortex force is. I bought Litster’s “Notes and Data” booklet on it, but I bet Einstein himself couldn’t make head or tail of that.

The Editors of MI smile whenever I tell how wonderful everything was, and when I ask why, they smile even more—but they won’t tell me a thing. Maybe they’re putting on an act, but I don’t know. I was there. I saw these things. What can account for what happens?

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A Hundred Miles of Cookies Every Day

USING complicated machines, modern bakeries turn out millions of cookies every day to satisfy the American sweet tooth.

MUCH has been said of quantity production, and in the public mind the term usually is associated with motor car assembling. But the process of continuous manufacture was in use in other industries long before the automobile achieved its remarkable popularity.

Among the interesting and romantic if not so widely advertised industries utilizing the continuous process of production is the manufacture of table dainties for everyday consumption, such as cookies and other pastries. These factories also have their miles of conveyor belts which pick up raw materials at one end of the plant, receive added ingredients as they pass certain stages, and finally emerge a completed product.

Cookies are one of the leading products of the pastry and confectionery industry. They may be said to be an American institution, in that the United States leads all other nations in their manufacture and sale.

The bulk of ingredients that go into a modern cookie plant and the number of individual articles that come out in a finished stage offer a computation in mathematics. In many cities there are factories that produce hundreds of miles of cookies every week. A production of 100,000 cookies a day requires about 125 sacks of flour, 7,000 pounds of sugar, 500 gallons of pure, fresh milk; 500 pounds of butter, 9,000 dozen eggs, 3,000 pounds of shortening and 2,400 pounds of fruits.

The huge batches of ingredients go into giant electrically driven mixing bowls armed with paddle agitators which work up the dough. When the mixture Is ready, it is cut into shape and delivered to an endless belt which carries the dough through the ovens into the shipping room.

House Shaped Like Elephant
A HOUSE built in the shape of an elephant is located at Margate City, N. J. Erected in 1882 by James V. Lafferty, the novel home is said to be the only one of its kind. The body is 38 feet long, the circumference, 80 feet. The head is 26 feet long and 48 feet around. Legs are 22 feet long with a diameter of 10 feet. Glass eyes have an 18-inch diameter.

Plastic Bathtub is a great time saver, says Dolly Down, nightclub singer, above. You can sun-bathe and water-bathe at the same time. She’s shown here atop a Miami hotel.

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The House of a Thousand Servants

WHAT might be called the most unusual house in America is the home of O. H. Caldwell, of Cos Cob, Connecticut. Mr. Caldwell is a noted electrical engineer and the former Federal Radio Commissioner. This house has over a thousand servants and yet has no servant problem, for all of the servants are electrical gadgets of one kind or another that do all the work.

Merely open the gate of this house and the building is flooded with light, inside and outside. At the flash of an automobile headlight the garage doors open automatically and the interior lights up. In summer the cool water from two deep wells is circulated through the steam pipes, thus cooling the house.

Ten radio stations sets situated in different parts of the house, all controlled by time clocks, are there to amuse you, and after you retire the radio will continue to play until you are asleep and then will automatically shut itself off.

The furnace is stoked by electricity, and there are over 100 outlets in the house for electric heaters, fans, piano, cleaning and laundry equipment, heated blankets, etc. The kitchen has 26 places to use electricity and one machine alone has over 150 uses. All of the cooking, heating and preparation of food is done by electricity.

New for the Home

Springless Mattress, dreamed up by a Swedish inventor, is light, bouncy as innerspring types. It’s been tested for durability, is said to have orthopedic values. Secret is the core of air-filled plastic. Susquehanna Mills, N. Y. C.

Range-Refrigerator, all in one, is a dollar and space-saver for small apartments. This one features a four cubic-foot electric refrigerator, gas cooking top. All-electric models also are available. General Air Conditioning Corp., Los Angeles.

Damp-Champ Super takes the backache out of laundry days. The plastic bag holds two machine loads of wash, leaves hands free. For dampening clothes evenly, just add some water and seal bag. Humphrey-Callander, Clinton, Ill.

Orange Peeler does a neat job of undressing citrus fruit. First, you cut a groove around the center. Second, you reverse the plastic gadget and use the curved blade to work the peel loose, as shown. Dillon-Beck Mfg. Co., Hillside, N. J.

Bureau-Shaped Building Houses Bureau of Information
AS a novel means of advertising their town’s chief industry, the manufacture of furniture, the local Chamber of Commerce of High Point, N.C, has erected a building resembling a huge bureau to house its headquarters. The novelty of the structure lies in the sign on the mirror, for the building is actually a bureau—a bureau of information. This unique building was erected by popular subscription and is located in the heart of the town.

One Man’s Castle

SIMON BINDER’S home is literally his castle. The 60-year-old wood-carver spent 11 painstaking years and countless thousands of hours remodeling the main floor of his two-and-a-half story Vancouver, B. C, home in 17th century baroque style. Every stick of furniture was fashioned by Binder, as were the ornate ceiling frescoes, simulated marble drapes, graceful wooden arches and the fireplace of raised flowery designs in this unique house.

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New Wiring Idea May Make the All-Electric House Come True

Spread out in the photographs above are symbols of what electrical engineers see as a revolution in home wiring. They show what can, in an ideally wired house, be done with a new type of electrical control. It’s called remote control, or relay switching.

The young housewife is showing how, from a single bedside panel with remote control switches, she can turn on the percolator in the kitchen, turn radios on or off, light up a flood lamp in the yard for a late-homecoming husband.

With the same system, she can even control the electric dishwasher and toaster. In fact, the new system makes it possible to control every light and electrical outlet in and around a house from one single point. Alternatively, it allows a home owner to have a multitude of control points for much-used outlets, providing a new high in the convenient use of household electricity. Best of all, such a system can be installed in a new or old house at only a fraction of what it would cost with conventional wiring. Just what it can mean to home owners, how it works and how much it costs are discussed in detail on the following two pages.

Remote-control system uses light, cheap wire, eliminates fire hazard The principle of remote control, or relay switching, has long been known to electrical engineers who have used it in various commercial and industrial plants. But only in recent months has it been applied to home wiring. The equipment is now made by three companies: Touch-Plate, Square D, and General Electric. This year more than 10,000 homes, mostly on the Pacific Coast, will be fitted with remote-control systems, and the idea is rapidly becoming popular in other parts of the United States.

The heart of a remote-control home wiring installation is a midget electrical relay, shown above on next page. This relay, installed in the junction box at any electrical outlet, does the actual job of turning the current at the outlet on and off. The relay in turn is operated by a small, neat wall switch that controls 24-volt power from a transformer similar to the kind often used for supplying current to doorbells and also to furnace thermostats.

The immediate question that comes to mind, unless you’re an electrical engineer, is, “Why is 24 volts better than 110.?” The answer to that also shows how a remote control system can do more for the money.

According to the National Electrical Code, 110-volt house wiring must be done with heavy, metal-sheathed cable, known to electricians as BX cable, or simply BX (upper wire in photograph above). This is because a short circuit in a 110-volt house circuit can cause sparks that can easily set your house on fire. So the wires carrying this current must be protected against anything that could damage their insulation and cause two conductors to come together and cause a short circuit.

However, if you reduce the voltage to 25 or below, and provide some method of preventing too much current from flowing through the wires, a short circuit will do no more damage than putting the circuit out of commission. All of tin three systems discussed lure operate on 24 volts and are limited to three amperes or less of current, so they are perfectly safe. Because there is no fire hazard, much smaller, cheaper wire (also shown above) can be used to carry this 24-volt power. Another important element is that the chances of getting 110 volts of house current through your body, with possibly fatal results, can be eliminated. Twenty-four volts at low amperage won’t do you any harm.

A Comparison Let’s compare a conventional wiring job with a specific remote control job, to see what are the important differences between the two.

Suppose your garage is a long distance from the back door of your house, and you have a floodlight outside the back door to light the path. For convenience you should be able to turn this light on or off from either the garage or the house. If you use a 110-volt circuit for this set-up, and no relays, it means you must run wires in expensive BX cable from the house all the way to the garage and back again. But with relay switching, the BX stops at the light socket. The cable to the garage is inexpensive two or three conductor, small-gauge wire.

Of course, for just one installation, such as described above, you would save money by sticking to the standard 110-volt system, because you would have to buy a transformer to operate your low-voltage control circuit. But one transformer will handle all the control circuits needed in an average house, so this cost (about $5) when applied against the saving in having most of your house wired with 24-volt wires, instead of BX, is insignificant.

You can’t get away from BX altogether because, as noted above, it must still run from your fuse box to each outlet in the house. But it stops there. All circuits from outlets to switches can be made with the low-cost 24-volt wire.

Naturally, this results in a saving where a house is wired for utmost convenience. Therein lies the real value of remote control. It provides a means of getting the maximum ease and comfort out of the wiring in your home.

Even the manufacturers of the remote control systems, however, don’t claim that they should be used everywhere. In building a house where economy is the paramount factor, for example, it would be cheaper to use conventional wiring, and have only one, or at most two switches for each outlet, and to have these switches located as close as possible to the outlets.

With remote control—because switches can be wired in parallel—you can have literally as many switches for a single outlet as you wish. And the minute you get above two switches for a single outlet, you begin saving money as well as getting more convenience.

What are the differences between the three systems now available? Biggest difference is between Touch-Plate and the two others. Touch-Plate uses a pushbutton type of switch—one push turns a light on, the next turns it off. This means that if your switch controls a light you can’t see—such as a basement light controlled from an upstairs hallway—you may not know whether a push on the switch is turning the light on or off. Both GE and Square D use two-position switches, marked to indicate which position turns the light on and which turns it off.

Slight Difference Beyond that all three systems differ only in minor details such as methods of mounting relays or connecting them to leads in various circuits.

* Because of the low voltage, home owners who want to do some wiring on their own and who know the principles can install remote control systems in houses already wired for 110 volts without violating most insurance or local building codes. However, experienced electricians point out that it is not as simple as it sounds. The difficulties of working with low voltage come from the fact that “trouble shooting” is more complicated, and any system that gets out of order, or is improperly wired in the first place, may prove a real headache, even to a practiced electrician.

Hydraulic Control OPENS Garage Door

OPERATED from ordinary water pipes with pressure furnished by a simple pipe attachment, an inexpensive new device for opening and closing garage doors from the driver’s seat of the automobile proves a great convenience to motorists. It will open or close, lock or unlock garage doors without the driver’s leaving the machine.

A simple and easily-handled hydraulic device, consisting of two valves, one valve with lock and key, is placed in a convenient location on the edge of the driveway where it is within easy reach of the driver’s arm. The other valve is placed inside the garage. Either valve opens and closes the doors.

Latest in Homes Has Skyscraper Frame and Glass Walls

CUBICAL in construction and designed to build for $2500 or less, the model house shown in the photo at the left has just been completed in Syosset, Long Island. It is intended to serve the needs of families whose income is $1800 a year or less.

Simple modernistic lines, with no fancy and expensive curlicues, characterize the design. Steel is used for the framework, giving it the durability of a skyscraper skeleton. Much glass is used to admit plenty of light.

A garage is on the first floor, with laundry rooms adjoining, and a porch alongside, open to the outdoors. The second floor has a living room, dining room, kitchenette, and one bed room. The third floor has two bed rooms and a closet, in addition to a large sunny terrace open to the sky for the children’s playground.

A small furnace for heating is also installed at the rear of the garage, and practically all the usual home conveniences are provided at a minimum of expense and slight costs of repair and upkeep.

Combination Stool and Dryer Saves Steps for Housewife

AN EXTREMELY convenient and serviceable device to have around the kitchen or wash house is the combination clothes dryer and kitchen stool, shown at the right. It serves ordinarily as a stool, but when it is desired to utilize it as dryer, the metal rods are pulled up through the holes in the seat and locked in place so that they stand out horizontally. When not in use the rods in no way interfere with the comfort of the seat.

The stool is made of metal, with a wide spread of the legs to prevent tipping. Many tiresome steps can be saved by the use of this stool-dryer, and much-needed space can often be conserved.

Lamp Shade in Football Motif
SOMETHING distinctly unique in the way of desk lamps was introduced at a University of Southern California sorority house. The shade was cut from parchment and made to resemble a football helmet, while the upright, cast in metal, forms a football. The lamp attracted wide attention and gave a sportive air to the room which it decorated.

Ash Tray Breathes and inhales the smoke that usually drifts over into a non-smoker’s eye. It draws all smoke down into the stand and keeps the room free of fumes, too. Penny Martin, of Los Angeles, is shown using this new and welcome invention. It operates electrically, uses house current.

James Liddy’s Bedsprings

By Alfred Lief

ONE day in 1853 James E. Liddy, a carriage maker’s blacksmith, drove his wife into Watertown, N. Y., in their buggy. They were newlyweds. Young Liddy was rather irked, waiting in the seat so long. He fidgeted and bounced on the coil-spring cushion seat—then suddenly his expression changed.

He thought how comfortable it would be to sleep on springs. He would get rid of those cross ropes that were tied to his bed frame as a support for the straw and feather ticks and use cushion coil.

Liddy took measurements and sawed six slats the length of his bed. In the carriage shop he fastened six open coils to each slat, spacing them for even distribution of weight. Here it was; the first bedspring. Mr. and Mrs. Liddy—if not George Washington—slept there.

Before James Liddy went to his eternal rest in 1921 at 93, many improvements had been made and a new industry organized. Production had passed from carriage makers to mattress manufacturers. So-called bed-bottoms appeared on the market with resilient lengthwise slats on top of crosswise rows of coils; others with a woven wire net enclosing the coils; still others with double decks of coils.

According to the latest census figures, the annual volume of U. S. sales for bed-springs totals $103,664,000 wholesale. This means in 1951 more than 3,000,000 box springs were sold, more than 2,000,000 coil springs and 500,000 flat springs.

Liddy never patented his idea nor is there any evidence that he undertook manufacturing but the National Association of Bedding Manufacturers is very grateful to him. Its president journeyed to Water-town for a centennial celebration this year and gave the county historical society a miniature model of Liddy’s creation. The brass plate attached to it bespeaks James E. Liddy’s “great contribution to better rest.” His fame is secure because he benefited mankind. He, too, can rest easy. *

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CITY WITHIN A CITY

Equal in size to ten 10-story buildings, New York’s Interstate Commerce Center will have an Indoor highway.

THEY gasped when Tom Mix rode his horse right through the swinging doors and into .a western saloon. They laughed when Olsen and Johnson drove a midget car into the elevator of a modern building and then through the halls to a lawyer’s office. (In Hollywood, anything can happen.) But within a few months, New Yorkers will see the start of a building which, when finished, will swallow whole fleets of large trucks, trailers, and cars—said vehicles calmly driving into the building and thence upward on a spiral, four-lane indoor highway to whatever floor their business is on.

This unique “in-building highway,” 32 feet wide and three-quarters of a mile long, and rising at a grade of only 6%, will be one of the outstanding features of the proposed Interstate Commerce Center building to be constructed by the Tishman Realty and Construction Company of New York. Thirteen stories high and covering an area of four square blocks strategically located on the threshold of the world’s commercial marts and routes on lower Manhattan, the new building will be a revolutionary step in architectural design aimed at helping industry meet the inevitable changes and expansions of the postwar industrial era.

“Industry,” observes David Tishman, President of the Tishman Realty and Construction Company, “is now confronted with a problem never before encountered—a problem that will necessitate drastic changes and improvements in business procedure. There are the tremendous potentialities of domestic and foreign markets; accumulated demands for new and replacement goods; an enormous expansion in aggregate buying power; revised distribution methods; and a labor supply far greater than that of the last prewar year.

“It is to coordinate this unprecedented demand, increase efficiency of operation in all branches of business and thus bring about lowered production and distribution costs, that the Interstate Commerce Center was designed.”

The $15,000,000 building, which will be larger than the Port of New York Authority Building and second only to Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, will be a veritable “city within a city,” housing not only industries but also restaurants, beauty parlors, barber shops, and retail stores for the 25,000 persons expected to work there. Each organization, leasing one or more floors, will have its own private entrance on the street floor leading to a private lobby with accommodations for reception clerks and switchboard personnel. Each firm will have its own private express passenger elevators, operated by a single button and stopping only at its own floor. Each floor will provide its tenant with over four acres of operating capacity, an area equal to the total floor space of a ten-story building of 100×175 feet. This tremendous area will permit the centralization on a single floor of all branches of a great organization: executive, production, merchandising, and shipping.

But, when it comes to the most amazing feature of the “Center,” the “in-building highway” will cop all honors. Its gentle 6% grade will permit trucks and trailers of maximum size to drive up at high speeds directly to loading platforms on any of the thirteen floors. Sidewalk deliveries, loading and unloading of freight into elevators, traffic-congested streets, jangled nerves and dented fenders will be a thing of the past, because each floor will have adequate loading space and facilities to accommodate at least twenty large trailer trucks. Loading and unloading these trucks will take place at these indoor platforms with a maximum of comfort, night and day, rain or shine.

Eye-Stopper of the Month

We’ve been getting a lot of complaints lately, especially from parents. “When are you going to publish an Eye-Stopper who isn’t clad in a skimpy bikini?” they ask. Well here she is, gracefully demonstrating American Standard’s new Ultra Bath. The oval “bathing pool” measures 5 feet long by 42 inches wide and 16 inches deep. Our water sprite is fiddling with the automatic water level and temperature Control Console. Or maybe she’s starting up the built-in whirlpool bath jets. Just out of the photo (but who cares?) is the Deluxe Shower Tower with its twin shower heads, one for washing all of you and the other for the neck down. Available through civilized plumbers everywhere.

Photo Wallpaper
THROW out that wallpaper! Away with plaster! Your home may now have magnificent new walls—walls covered seemingly with rare and beautiful materials such as hare-wood, woven rattan, marble, even snakeskin—all practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

The Di-Noc Company of Cleveland makes it possible. Using a record-sized camera they take color shots of the material to be reproduced, etch the exposures so obtained on copper plates, and use the plates for printing by the gravure process on an extremely thin paperbacked film. Film with backing is transferred in large areas to any flat surface and the backing stripped away.

Greenhouse Goes Modern

WHAT is considered as the last word in green houses recently has been completed in St. Louis at a $120,000 cost. Unlike the average greenhouse of today, the roof is practically hail proof, the top being made of an unbreakable composition.

The glass panels are made up of 24 by 26-inch panes covering 15,000 square feet, and are fastened in place with copper glazing strips.